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Banshee's shouldn't cost power?
Xerrol_Nanoha
In previous games,banshees were considered a staple unit next to their guardians (dire avengers) and dark reapers. Dawn of war 3 is the first game in the franchise where banshees require power in addition to requisition to field. Eldar have no basic or specialized melee units. Assault marines are worth power because of the utility and mobility that they come with. Boyz are a basic combat unit suitable for fielding cheaply in large numbers.
The banshee, although having better damage than Boyz, do not have the utility or mobility of Assault marines. I do not think that they are strong or specialized enough to warrant any power cost. Eldar is already starved on power trying to build webways in the field, and while the dire avenger and dark reaper have all the lackluster of pure requisition units.
I think that banshee's (with damage/health adjusted accordingly) should not cost any power, and should cost only requisition in some amount. Maybe that amount should go up. I don't know. But I do know that banshees under-perform, and that trying to build them or replace them in meaningful numbers feels awful on power when I'm also trying to build requisition economy, get early upgrades, and expand webway influence on the map.
I'm curious what other people think?
Comments
jonoliveira12
Banshees have to cost Power, because of their doctrines, and synergy with Elites. On their own, they are a horrible unit, but with even just Improved Scream doctrine, and Macha's Fortune buff from her Blast, they become a control element that does have place in the early game, specially vs enemy 2-3 point Elites.
GuruSkippy
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think banshees before There Is Only War patch in DOW2 had a power cost, while shurken platform didn't.
Katitof
By that logic, everything should cost power, LPs included.
Sorry, but if you require doctrine to make a unit usable, then that is THE dictionary case of why unit is underpowered.
Relic is fully aware of that and trying to fix it, they bugged quick strike a bit, however single long cooldown that you need to pay to unlock isn't going to solve units problems and inability to get in combat without losing a lot of health and then staying there without being murdered.
Xerrol_Nanoha
I was going off of current costs and balancing in soulstorm and retribution.
That said, I think making shuriken platform cost power, and banshees not cost power was the right decision for dawn of war 2.
Stoner
If they remove power cost for ASM, sure. And yeah, most units of all races are weak, and doctrines compensate them, it designed that way by Relic, that's why there are so many cases of doctrine stacking to make certain unit somewhat viable and make it backbone of your line force. Idiocy if you ask me, but no way around it. Still, people will defend broken Doctrine system to the death...
Xerrol_Nanoha
If I could field ASM as an eldar player I would happily pay their power cost. I think that the ability to jump over terrain obstacles and inflict knockback is worth their power cost. (to say nothing of how strong the true damage upgrade is in the lategame) If I could give banshees a jump with knockback and true damage attacks, I think they would be worth quite a bit of power.
Stoner
If I could stack 3 doctrines on my ASMs, I'd gladly trade jump or anything else they have... 1 useless doctrine and honestly, how many builds revolving around ASMs you see these days? Unit is extremely expensive and very easy to kite/counter, esp. for Eldar.
Xerrol_Nanoha
Sorry, but there's nothing you can say to convince me that banshees are somehow better than assault marines.
Assault marines are a fantastic with excellent utility and mobility in the early game, combined with excellent scaling into the late game. It's a unit that can destroy infantry or crush vehicles in equal measure, comes with powerful control effects, and is incredibly durable on its own to say nothing of the added value of drop pods.
Banshees are a high damage, but low durability melee unit with moderate to poor mobility on the offense by comparison to assault marines. They are dependent upon other units or elites for survivability, and they lose their effectiveness beyond tier 1.
How do you misplay your assault marines so much that they are kitable by units that fall apart in melee? You have two different terrain ignoring jumps on separate cooldowns and you can't get into range? How do you expect to get banshees into melee with no jumps? lmao
Stoner
Nice theory, in practice it's completely different. Banshees actually have lower dps but battle focus allow them to bleed less and thus maintain higher overall dps, that's true for most Eldar units, while Banshees benefit from this in particular for being melee. ASM can jump, disrupt, but you aren't glued to the ground, just get up and run away, damage they can inflict on fallen units is meagre and with passive speed buff Eldar units easily outrun ASM, especially since their charge got nerfed, they just can't catch up. Nukes work in this game in such manner that it either outright kills squads or leaves them half dead with 1-2 models, so durability argument is completely invalid here. And btw, who needs jumps when you can stealth your melee and chop everything to ribbons with hunt while enemy units are blinded, muted and your melee restores shields during fight... After last patch complaining about Eldar and asking for more buffs is hilarious.
Fww
Who need stealth when it countered by a 50req unit...
Seriously you say that assmarines are bad because they can't catch up with ranged units who run away from them but banshees are fine when they are pretty much deleted once they get to hit anything.
Lude
I have to agree with this, Eldar are not in desperate need of any buffs at this moment, and removing the power cost for Banshees wouldn't serve any real purpose. The game is designed such that basic melee units cost power (except for Orks, whose basic melee unit is rather weak and needs scrap to be buffed) and taking this cost away from Banshees but not Assault Marines would be completely pointless. Personally if Banshees do need more changes (which I'm not convinced of at this time; admittedly they are a bit underwhelming without Improved Scream but a lot of units are weak without doctrines) they should be buffed rather than have their cost reduced.
MaxwellsDaemon
Banshees should cost power - if they are going to be buffed the only buff I'd like to see is making the scream an activatable ability.
Leave it with the option to auto scream for those that don't want the micro demand.
Gorb
Basic Banshees didn't cost Power in DoW II, but to make any effective use of them you needed an Exarch and / or their Aspect upgrade. Both of which do cost Power.
Also "they didn't cost Power in a previous game" is not a compelling balance argument, I feel. It's a different game. It had different balance. A differing fundamental design, even. If there's an issue with Power generation in the Eldar early game, looking at where it's going would probably be a better approach, than buffing a decent combat unit that benefits from at least one very effective Doctrine (if chosen).
Opinion post.
Lude
If I had to guess, I would say melee units cost power because they have more health than other units. Boyz are an exception because they don't.
Katitof
Melee units NEED more health then others to function.
You have the reason in their name. MELEE aka need to close in and still be alive when they do.
Stoner
Funniest thing is if we consider carefully melee units, it appears that in terms of survivability/effectiveness ratio Boyz are pretty good. They melt like everyone else, but can shield themselves, easily replaceable because of cost, can have strong CC abilities and in the endgame have enormous hp pool. Why they don't cost power is a bit strange tbh in comparison with other T1 melee options.
Katitof
That's because
1) They are starting unit
2) They are meat shields and don't stand up to other melee squads, even when upgraded, they deal with ranged ones, but melee wrecks them hard, so does AoE.